Frances G. Tilney

“You are going to make your husband sweat bullets,” said Psychic Mary. “In the future, you will be living in California and will have access to the CEOs of ABC and NBC and all the heads of various networks. I just picture you with a pencil behind your ear, doing things in the production world.”

Psychic Mary paused to close her eyes, pass her hands over the tarot cards and caress her golden rocks. “I see that you will get back together with someone that you had a long, rocky relationship with.” Frances thinks. Who could that have been? JP? Josh Simon? She ponders her long, tortured past of Crimson relationships. “You will have multiple residences and you will have to do a lot of stress management with your husband, I picture you getting married very soon, right after college.” She continues, “You will be big in the production world. Your 15 minutes of fame will involve TV, but you will be stressed. Every time you think your life has gotten big, it gets bigger. You will succeed in this world and never stop working.” Frances furls her brow, because she doesn’t really want to marry one of her past boyfriends, move to California and work in the Industry. Either way, Psychic Mary is convinced. “You will hate it when you see someone who can is doing a job that you can do better. You will take over.” Psychic Mary flashes the death card. “This doesn’t mean what you think,” she says quickly. “ You will have a lot of change in your life. Always. In love and in your career. It’s about time that you had a happy life with someone. Your past relationship will come back into your life and be much better than it ever was, but you and your husband will have to figure out who wears the pants in the family.” Frances looks down at her pants. Right there, she decides she will be the one to wear them.

BML on FGT

Frances: a Beacon Hill native and frequent traveler in sweltering, mysterious, Spanish-speaking locales. A drinker of Bombay Sapphire gin and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Seen on a post-Sunday brunch stroll with distinguished parents. Seen on a Thursday-night binge with associates of questionable character at Whitney’s bar. Not surprising, then, Frances’ four-year love affair with FM, the weekly collision of high and low culture, sophistication and vulgarity, mètier and booya. Her commitment unquestioned, her sanity less certain, Frances was our raging, deadline-enforcing maniac, our late-night production ass-kicker, physically unable to take any crap or listen to our consistently bullshit excuses about why Gossip Guy was five hours late, again. She was the best friend a magazine could have, willing and, it sometimes seemed, eager to battle those territorial fiends from News and those slackers at Online. She was our go-to writer, our compiler of listings and drinky-drinks. She was our sender of pages, our Imagesetter ace, our unlikely expert on matters technical. What will we do without her? A practical question, but also a sentimental one. It will be weird and sad with her gone.

Frances’ personality tends towards the endearingly insane. Her hugs frequently turn into kidney punches. Her e-mails usually consist only of “asdfsjdafhsjdkffsdkj.” She uses “heh” as an noun, verb and adjective. She inpires borderline-obsessive behavior from men of all types, including men she doesn’t know who climb into her bed “because I haven’t cuddled with anyone in a while.”

Her future? Dark nights in cities that keep their secrets, many of them located in sweltering, mysterious, Spanish-speaking locales. Super-important work for shadowy intelligence organizations, following a reunion with JYS in Olde England and a few years of Latin American studies at Cambridge or Oxford or some such. Much of Frances’ future is classified. We can only tell you so much. Some things we know for sure: Harpoon IPA will almost certainly be involved. Ella Fitzgerald’s recording of “Just One of Those Things” will definitely be involved. Semi-obsessive men will be involved, probably Latin political operatives instead of drunken WASPs. Her CIA underlings will be confused by e-mails like “overthrow Chilean government sadfjkasdfjkhsdf heh heh -Frances.” We can hope, too: that she finds success and happiness in the world of global political intrigue. So goodbye, dear, and amen. Here’s hoping we meet now and then.